In 1964, Eduardo Coutinho started work on a film about João Pedro Teixeira, a peasant protest leader in the Brazilian state of Paraíba who was murdered in 1962 on the orders of the landowners against whom he incited his followers. Teixeira’s widow Elizabeth, also active in the peasant protest movement, was to play herself in the film. However, production was halted after the military coup— roughly 40 percent of the film that had been shot was confiscated, and members of the cast and crew were arrested.

In 1984, as the military dictatorship was coming to an end, Coutinho returned to Paraíba with the material filmed 20 years earlier. He visits former members of the cast and crew, including Elizabeth Teixeira, and shows them the old footage. He thus simultaneously creates a portrait of the popular protest of the 1960s, of the renewed protests of the 1980s, and of the time that elapsed between them.